Havok Publishing

Salvation

By Ryan Helcoski

Warmth does not come to the peaks as quickly as it does the valley. For though the mountains here remain frozen in winter’s grasp, the basin below my tomb has thawed, and in the valley, flowers bloom. From the summit I watch as thick snow melts and flows into rising streams that feed the invaders’ crops and cattle and greed.

For our land is his now as he has slaughtered us, and those who would not die were taken in by vice. Some fell on their knees to the invader’s god, and granted him dominion over our land and our people and our world. Others fell before his liquor, or his currency, or his empty promises of equality and prosperity.

But I cannot fault them, those that carry on. They are survivors. They are Nusheyca. They are me. Through their veins my blood still flows, like the crystal rivers of our sacred land. Our land that has lost the bison, the native, the wolf. That is now the home of the alfalfa, the invader, the automobile.

And so, a land familiar turns foreign before my lifeless eyes. Eyes that stare and cannot close, thus forcing me to always watch. Though why I have been made to do so is unclear. Perhaps it is for the method of my hanging or my indiscretions in life. Perhaps the Great Spirit is simply displeased. Or perhaps He requires a witness.

For a witness is all that I am. A long dead testament to the strength of my people. Though I see so few of us now. Once my tomb—before it was a tomb—was a place of worship. Now it is merely an oddity for the sons and daughters of the invaders who climb my peak and reinstate their love of the landscape. But they do not love it as I do. They cannot. For they have not the roots. They are but a passing mote in the river of time.

Thus today, like every other day, I watch as the sun rises and falls upon my cliffs. Yet this time I see a young girl trekking alone.

She is Nusheyca.

I know it, not because of her features, although her eyes are dark and her hair is black—like mine. No, it is for her spirit that is but a wandering part of the Great Spirit himself, that I see and sense and know. It is a spirit I recognize like a part of myself. Like the arm of a man or the limb of a tree.

So I watch her from my tomb, that is my home, within the rocks. Off the well-worn trail and situated along a narrow crevasse. For it was upon this tomb—before it was a tomb—that I personally sent arrows into the hearts of the invaders until my supply ran dry and I was overwhelmed and throttled and hanged from these sacred rocks where my spirit still dwells. As a corpse, a warning and a promise to all Nusheyca who dared defy the invaders’ will. As a spirit, a hopeful witness to their inevitable destruction.

Still watching, I see the girl now crest the peak. She scans the horizon and anticipation overwhelms me when her eyes meet mine. However, I see within her face no sign that she has recognized my ethereal ghastly form. But then she splits off the beaten trail and walks towards the narrow cliffs that lead to my tomb.

Within the woods she deftly glides. Her footing is sure, and the loose stones and frost do nothing to slow her passage. A sense of pride wells up within me as I watch her approach, unafraid of the height and ice though she is so small and the crevasse so deep.

“Hello,” she says, when she reaches my side.

“Hello,” say I, staring wonderingly into those dark eyes. For so long I have stood unseen that our simple exchange unleashes a torrent of emotions that threaten to overwhelm me.

“My grandma has told me there are many restless spirits in the mountains. Are you a restless spirit, sir? One who cannot pass on due to guilt or sin?”

Her words take me by surprise. Though I know that the concept of “sin” is a machination of the invader, invented to sow guilt and foster obedience, it is true that in life I had committed many an act for which one may feel shame. But in recalling my feats I feel no remorse, save for one. I lament that I had not been agile enough to slide my blade across the throat of the man who hanged me.

While remembering that regret, I must have looked strange, for the girl’s eyes go wide. In that look I realize that those eyes are not like my own, but the eyes of the very ones who condemned me to die.

Perhaps in life my blood would boil and rage would spit from my mouth. But in death there is only peace, no hate.

And so, I simply stare into her eyes as she does mine.

“Do you desire salvation?” she asks at last.

As her words crash upon me like waves upon a shore, a spell is broken. I tear my gaze from hers and look upon the beauty of our world. I see our mountains capped in frost and snow with evergreens standing firm in the cold, emerald sentinels surrounded by white. I see our valley below, still lush and thriving, though the invaders’ city spreads like blight upon our land. But then too I recall that their time will be short and mine eternal. In that, the years flood past me, and a warmth settles upon my long dead heart.

There is a pause…

A long pause…

During which the girl waits in silence…

I look again into those dark eyes.

“I do not,” say I, and I turn back to my mountains and valley and sky.

For salvation was, already mine.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Helcoski is a human who studies nonhuman things and their ecological impacts. His work has nothing to do with the incomprehensible.


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